1 00:00:05,120 --> 00:00:07,880 Welcome back everyone. I am Cass PNC. 2 00:00:07,880 --> 00:00:10,320 I'm joined as usual by my partner in crime, Mr. Bennett 3 00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:11,360 Tomlin. How are you today? 4 00:00:11,360 --> 00:00:12,600 You know, yeah. How are you? 5 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:15,840 Slogging along we're doing we're trying out a new thing we're 6 00:00:15,840 --> 00:00:18,000 going to try to post one of these shorter videos every week 7 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:20,200 we basically we literally have ourselves on a timer right now 8 00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:23,400 so we're going to try to keep this as short and succinct as 9 00:00:23,400 --> 00:00:26,400 possible so that we can keep everybody updated with that out 10 00:00:26,400 --> 00:00:30,040 of the way I think it's worth starting this discussion today 11 00:00:30,440 --> 00:00:33,400 actually, let's start with the least important one first 12 00:00:33,600 --> 00:00:37,480 Bennett and I both watched a press conference by David Sachs 13 00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:41,040 who is the crypto czar of the Trump administration, a South 14 00:00:41,040 --> 00:00:46,280 African who is basically like a mini Elon Musk, less successful 15 00:00:46,280 --> 00:00:49,880 less interesting Elon Musk He's. The one who wrote the rape 16 00:00:50,440 --> 00:00:54,520 apology with Peter Thiel. As evil as Elon Musk, but like, 17 00:00:54,520 --> 00:00:56,640 just less successful and less interesting. 18 00:00:56,920 --> 00:01:01,560 Anyway, he did a press conference and it was terribly 19 00:01:01,560 --> 00:01:03,720 stupid. But yeah, go ahead, Bennett, get 20 00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:04,400 into that. Sure. 21 00:01:04,640 --> 00:01:09,280 So David Sachs held a press conference along with GT 22 00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:14,720 Thompson, French Hill, Tim Scott and Bozeman to talk about all 23 00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:17,080 the important cryptocurrency things they're about to do, 24 00:01:17,080 --> 00:01:21,440 which is 2 bills, a stable coin bill and a market structure 25 00:01:21,440 --> 00:01:23,920 bill. The stable coin bill is coming 26 00:01:23,960 --> 00:01:27,400 from Senator Haggerty and the House intends to introduce one 27 00:01:27,400 --> 00:01:31,280 similar. This puts some limits on what 28 00:01:31,280 --> 00:01:33,680 reserves stablecoins would be able to hold. 29 00:01:33,960 --> 00:01:38,760 Tries to set the Fed and the OCC up as the two primary stablecoin 30 00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:41,640 regulators. But because this is important to 31 00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:46,600 Wyoming, included a carve out for state regulator to get like 32 00:01:46,600 --> 00:01:50,160 waved out of federal oversight if there's like a state 33 00:01:50,160 --> 00:01:53,040 regulator overseeing you. And so that's what like any 34 00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:55,760 problematic stablecoin will probably end up doing is trying 35 00:01:55,760 --> 00:01:58,080 to get waved out of the federal regulation into a state 36 00:01:58,080 --> 00:02:02,120 regulator, probably in Wyoming. And so that's the stable coin 37 00:02:02,120 --> 00:02:04,240 bill that they intend to advance. 38 00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:07,440 I want to just quickly also mention that they during this 39 00:02:07,440 --> 00:02:10,000 press conference, the way that they were just talking about 40 00:02:10,280 --> 00:02:15,560 dollar hegemony and the idea of like a, oh, we need, we need 41 00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:18,680 more people to have access to dollars because that will 42 00:02:18,680 --> 00:02:22,440 strengthen the dollar is like completely missing a really 43 00:02:22,440 --> 00:02:26,360 important part of the strength of the dollar, which is that the 44 00:02:26,360 --> 00:02:31,240 government is able to easily stop many nations and 45 00:02:31,240 --> 00:02:34,680 individuals from being able to easily access the US dollar. 46 00:02:34,680 --> 00:02:37,720 And if you make it easier and easier to access the US dollar, 47 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:40,880 I see why that helps with the velocity of money, but it 48 00:02:40,880 --> 00:02:42,880 doesn't necessarily help strengthen the money. 49 00:02:42,880 --> 00:02:46,800 Well, and if we're talking about access to money, like you 50 00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:50,560 probably don't cut off all federal grants, federal payments 51 00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:54,080 to a variety of different places and try to crash the entire 52 00:02:54,080 --> 00:02:56,960 global economy at the same time. Because a lot of people get 53 00:02:56,960 --> 00:03:00,360 their primary access to money from their jobs before we have 54 00:03:00,360 --> 00:03:02,680 to worry about whether or not they can put those dollars on 55 00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:05,080 whatever blockchains they want. They they need the initial 56 00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:07,160 dollars. And that's the real problem for 57 00:03:07,160 --> 00:03:09,360 most people, right? Democratization of finance is a 58 00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:13,200 lie meant to sell you scams because most people who don't 59 00:03:13,200 --> 00:03:16,120 have access to financial services, it's because they lack 60 00:03:16,120 --> 00:03:19,600 money exempting. There are people who get an 61 00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:22,360 unfair stick but like that's the big part of it. 62 00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:24,480 The other bill is a market structure bill. 63 00:03:24,640 --> 00:03:29,640 It sounds like it's going to be Fit 20 One 2.0, which primarily 64 00:03:29,640 --> 00:03:33,960 punts a lot of cryptocurrency regulation to the CFTC, which as 65 00:03:33,960 --> 00:03:37,120 we recently talked about with Sean Duffy, the CFTC doesn't 66 00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:41,120 have the budget, the manpower or like the wherewithal to do that 67 00:03:41,120 --> 00:03:43,760 kind of regulating. And like, the really problematic 68 00:03:43,760 --> 00:03:48,160 part of Fit 21 is it uses like a hilariously broad definition of 69 00:03:48,160 --> 00:03:52,320 decentralized, which as long as like there's not one issuer or 70 00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:56,480 one person with 20% of the token supply, it like counts as 71 00:03:56,480 --> 00:03:58,880 decentralized and goes into like the CFTC. 72 00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:01,160 These little exemption play playbook. 73 00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:03,680 I'm broad strokes for these bills. 74 00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:06,760 There's little subtle details you can get into if you hate 75 00:04:06,760 --> 00:04:09,280 yourself. But like, broadly, the idea is 76 00:04:09,280 --> 00:04:12,720 to punt crypto to the CFC, gut the regulatory agencies, make 77 00:04:12,720 --> 00:04:16,000 sure nothing gets regulated. And oh, Tim Scott says he can 78 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:19,600 get these bills passed out of the Senate in 100 days. 79 00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:23,400 And Kirsten Gillibrand is a feckless coward who has agreed 80 00:04:23,400 --> 00:04:26,240 to collaborate with fascists to advance crypto regulation for 81 00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:26,920 some reason. Yep. 82 00:04:27,160 --> 00:04:28,720 Cool. OK, so that goes over that. 83 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:31,280 Also, I think, yeah, we'll link to the Sean Tuffy episode 84 00:04:31,280 --> 00:04:36,440 because there's a lot of reasons that the CFTC, it's not like 85 00:04:36,440 --> 00:04:39,720 it's an incompetent agency, it just doesn't have the ability to 86 00:04:39,720 --> 00:04:40,080 do. This. 87 00:04:40,080 --> 00:04:42,960 Oh, unless we're expanding the CFTCS budget. 88 00:04:43,160 --> 00:04:46,000 Are we giving the CFTC 10 times more budget in the next 89 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:48,560 reconciliation? I don't fucking think so. 90 00:04:48,760 --> 00:04:51,320 Maybe we should merge it with the SEC, but I guess that's a 91 00:04:51,320 --> 00:04:53,760 different discussion. But that does bring up the SEC, 92 00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:56,320 which is another topic that we want to talk about because it 93 00:04:56,320 --> 00:04:58,520 seems like the SEC will no longer be doing any 94 00:04:58,520 --> 00:05:00,560 investigating anymore, right? Yeah. 95 00:05:00,560 --> 00:05:04,000 So the change was specifically reported by Reuters, and it says 96 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:07,320 that like SEC, lower level staff can no longer start 97 00:05:07,320 --> 00:05:10,240 investigations without first getting approval of the 98 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:12,040 politically appointed commissioners. 99 00:05:12,040 --> 00:05:14,560 So nothing's going to be investigated. 100 00:05:14,840 --> 00:05:18,800 It's being described generously in the press as a barrier to 101 00:05:18,800 --> 00:05:21,600 investigations, but it fundamentally means that 102 00:05:21,880 --> 00:05:24,800 basically nothing is going to get investigated unless you can 103 00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:27,880 get these highly politicized actors to agree to investigate 104 00:05:27,880 --> 00:05:29,440 it. We're past the point of like 105 00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:32,320 things not being enforced or them not bringing actions. 106 00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:34,120 There's not even anyone checking. 107 00:05:34,280 --> 00:05:35,920 There's not even going to be anyone looking. 108 00:05:36,040 --> 00:05:37,400 They're not going to be able to get approval. 109 00:05:37,560 --> 00:05:41,720 And the bigger fallout from this is it's going to drive so many 110 00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:45,000 of the lower level staff, the competent people who could 111 00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:48,760 eventually build like some kind of regulator out of the SEC in a 112 00:05:48,760 --> 00:05:52,240 way that even when you build the political will around wanting to 113 00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:56,840 regulate, it will take a huge infusion of funding and a long 114 00:05:56,960 --> 00:06:00,000 amount of time to rebuild the regulatory state they're 115 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:00,440 getting. Yep. 116 00:06:00,440 --> 00:06:03,520 It's so hard to rebuild these agencies once you've got them to 117 00:06:03,520 --> 00:06:06,200 bear. It's like a metaphor where it's 118 00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:09,400 like, I think generally what you do is if a if you're, if you're, 119 00:06:10,160 --> 00:06:13,840 if you buy a home that's in this state of complete disrepair, 120 00:06:14,280 --> 00:06:17,880 you're often better off just like knocking it down and 121 00:06:17,880 --> 00:06:20,040 rebuilding a new one because it's cheaper. 122 00:06:20,400 --> 00:06:23,240 The way they're gutting these agencies, it's like, what? 123 00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:26,000 Whatever is going to remain by the time someone else comes into 124 00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:28,920 power is going to be hard to imagine that they can even. 125 00:06:29,480 --> 00:06:30,960 It'll take generations to rebuild, Yeah. 126 00:06:31,200 --> 00:06:34,640 There's a finite number of people, lawyers and experts who 127 00:06:34,640 --> 00:06:37,520 are capable and willing of working for this type of group, 128 00:06:37,840 --> 00:06:40,720 and you've just made that group even smaller, you know? 129 00:06:40,720 --> 00:06:44,600 Yeah, we should also then, since we're on this general thing, we 130 00:06:44,600 --> 00:06:47,840 should talk about how our favorite free speech advocates 131 00:06:48,080 --> 00:06:52,880 have now made it a crime to report on Elon Musk's Doge 132 00:06:52,880 --> 00:06:55,400 collaborators. So two things here. 133 00:06:55,400 --> 00:06:57,560 First of all, we're going to link to the Wired reporting. 134 00:06:57,560 --> 00:07:00,680 You can find that in the details of the episode below, or if 135 00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:03,240 you're listening on a podcast, you can find it in the episode 136 00:07:03,240 --> 00:07:04,920 notes. The reporting is fantastic. 137 00:07:05,080 --> 00:07:06,920 I urge you to become a member of Wired. 138 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:10,360 Pay them. They're doing amazing work 139 00:07:10,360 --> 00:07:13,040 covering the coup. And what they did was they went 140 00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:16,080 ahead and they named these individuals Akash Baba, Edward 141 00:07:16,080 --> 00:07:21,440 Korstein, Luke Fariator, Gautier, Cole Killian, Gavin 142 00:07:21,440 --> 00:07:25,320 Kliger and Ethan Xiaotran. The reason we're naming them is 143 00:07:25,320 --> 00:07:28,960 specifically because of our last episode with Ed Zittron where he 144 00:07:29,040 --> 00:07:31,520 said a really important part of this is naming names. 145 00:07:31,720 --> 00:07:33,840 So these individuals are interns. 146 00:07:33,840 --> 00:07:37,400 They're no ones. They're interns at the DOGE, the 147 00:07:37,400 --> 00:07:39,920 Department of Governmental Efficiency, which is. 148 00:07:39,960 --> 00:07:42,640 Not a department. Is not a real governmental 149 00:07:42,640 --> 00:07:44,560 department. They're interns there and they 150 00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:47,400 basically went in office space style and started asking people 151 00:07:47,480 --> 00:07:50,760 what their duties were and changing code, doing all kinds 152 00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:54,640 of things that the office of what is it, Office of Personal 153 00:07:54,640 --> 00:07:55,920 Management, whatever. It is, yeah. 154 00:07:55,920 --> 00:07:57,960 So they took over there. They like went into Office of 155 00:07:57,960 --> 00:08:00,280 Personnel Management, they went into Office of Budget 156 00:08:00,280 --> 00:08:03,080 Management. They have connected unauthorized 157 00:08:03,080 --> 00:08:06,880 devices into like the Treasury's secure payment systems. 158 00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:10,000 And I was initially reported that was read access. 159 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:12,480 They apparently have both read and write access to these 160 00:08:12,480 --> 00:08:15,400 payments. Despite the there being court 161 00:08:15,400 --> 00:08:18,080 injunctions against like the federal funding freezes and 162 00:08:18,080 --> 00:08:20,440 things like that. There are still people reporting 163 00:08:20,440 --> 00:08:24,680 that like certain agencies have yet to receive their grants and 164 00:08:24,680 --> 00:08:27,200 things like that. There's still gaps which seem to 165 00:08:27,200 --> 00:08:31,440 suggest that the Trump administration is not perhaps 166 00:08:31,760 --> 00:08:35,799 completely adhering to the court injunction so far, which is 167 00:08:35,799 --> 00:08:38,039 illegal. We're going to keep saying it. 168 00:08:38,960 --> 00:08:41,159 We're going to keep saying it. Thanks. 169 00:08:41,280 --> 00:08:43,640 You know, and Chuck Schumer really nailing it home for these 170 00:08:43,640 --> 00:08:46,920 guys, huh? A bill to a bill to make sure 171 00:08:46,920 --> 00:08:51,160 that that what was already illegal is acknowledged as. 172 00:08:51,240 --> 00:08:54,480 Chuck Schumer is worried the coup may make your chicken wings 173 00:08:54,480 --> 00:08:56,240 expensive. And he's right. 174 00:08:56,440 --> 00:08:59,400 It will. But like, there's a coup. 175 00:08:59,520 --> 00:09:02,640 Chuck, there's a there's a coup Anyway, Yeah, yeah. 176 00:09:02,640 --> 00:09:03,840 Great points. Great points. 177 00:09:04,240 --> 00:09:10,360 Ed Martin, the Attorney General for DC, has threatened an ex to 178 00:09:10,360 --> 00:09:14,320 prosecute people revealing these names and these details and 179 00:09:14,320 --> 00:09:17,640 things, which, you know, seems like an illegal use of state 180 00:09:17,640 --> 00:09:20,720 power to silence journalists, critics in the press in a 181 00:09:20,720 --> 00:09:23,400 complete and utter violation of the 1st Amendment. 182 00:09:23,400 --> 00:09:25,800 And I want to keep saying that Elon Musk is like, quote, 183 00:09:25,800 --> 00:09:28,720 tweeting all these people and saying, like, that's illegal, 184 00:09:29,520 --> 00:09:30,680 but there's no law. He's referent. 185 00:09:30,680 --> 00:09:33,320 Like, this is not illegal. It is not illegal to name names 186 00:09:33,320 --> 00:09:35,200 of people destroying the government. 187 00:09:35,400 --> 00:09:38,680 Which makes it, which makes it especially terrifying that the 188 00:09:38,680 --> 00:09:42,400 attorney general for DC is like, yes, President Musk, I agree 189 00:09:42,400 --> 00:09:45,080 with you that this is a crime we need to prosecute. 190 00:09:45,360 --> 00:09:48,640 Like even even I need, I need everyone in the audience to 191 00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:51,200 understand even if you, you win your federal case and it gets 192 00:09:51,200 --> 00:09:54,160 thrown out, by the time it gets thrown out or whatever, there is 193 00:09:54,160 --> 00:09:57,160 a good chance you are like bankrupt, unemployed, and your 194 00:09:57,160 --> 00:10:00,520 life has been ruined because like the case has been brought 195 00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:02,400 against you. And the effect that has. 196 00:10:02,640 --> 00:10:06,960 And that is their goal, to chill and silence and cut people off, 197 00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:10,760 make people afraid to say, Akash Bob or Edward Korstein or any of 198 00:10:10,760 --> 00:10:14,560 these people, because it means that they risk ruining their 199 00:10:14,560 --> 00:10:16,480 entire life. Yeah, which is silly. 200 00:10:16,800 --> 00:10:19,800 It's silly this idea that they would go out like I'm. 201 00:10:19,880 --> 00:10:22,560 It's not silly in that I don't think they'll do it. 202 00:10:22,560 --> 00:10:25,560 That's not what I'm saying. I it's very possible they do do 203 00:10:25,560 --> 00:10:28,640 this stuff, which again points to our, our last episode with Ed 204 00:10:28,640 --> 00:10:31,320 where it's like I specifically said they were gonna sue people 205 00:10:31,320 --> 00:10:34,080 about this and they were gonna, I didn't say arrest cuz I 206 00:10:34,080 --> 00:10:37,760 thought that would go too far. But if they do, am I surprised? 207 00:10:37,760 --> 00:10:39,480 No. But does that mean we all need 208 00:10:39,480 --> 00:10:41,040 to shut our mouths? Well, no. 209 00:10:41,040 --> 00:10:44,800 Then they win. So our job as content creators 210 00:10:44,800 --> 00:10:49,560 and members of the press, we need to push back as hard as we 211 00:10:49,560 --> 00:10:53,320 possibly can against this stuff. So yeah, proud proudly name 212 00:10:53,320 --> 00:10:55,000 names if you have the opportunity to and. 213 00:10:55,200 --> 00:10:58,560 We should also mention, as part of his efforts to dismantle the 214 00:10:58,560 --> 00:11:01,800 federal government and illegally stop funds that Congress has 215 00:11:01,800 --> 00:11:05,440 already appropriated, Elon Musk has put in his sights the 216 00:11:05,440 --> 00:11:09,080 OCCRRP, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, 217 00:11:09,360 --> 00:11:12,400 which receives a large portion of its budget from federal 218 00:11:12,400 --> 00:11:16,320 initiatives, often through agencies like USAID and things 219 00:11:16,320 --> 00:11:19,480 like that, that are directing it to OCCRP because they report on 220 00:11:19,480 --> 00:11:22,000 things. One of the, I think it was a 221 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:24,800 grouper, but it might have been some other kind of alt right 222 00:11:25,480 --> 00:11:30,440 crazy person on X that Musk was retweeting was like, why did the 223 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:34,400 government fund the OCCRP when they went after Rudy Giuliani 224 00:11:34,560 --> 00:11:37,480 and Elon Musk like quote tweeted it and was like, we're going to 225 00:11:37,480 --> 00:11:40,120 cut this off. And obviously there's obvious 226 00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:42,640 reasons Elon Musk doesn't want the organized crime and 227 00:11:42,640 --> 00:11:44,480 corruption reporting project to exist. 228 00:11:44,680 --> 00:11:47,560 Like it's in the name why he doesn't want it to exist. 229 00:11:47,680 --> 00:11:49,320 Exactly. And you know, Bennett and I 230 00:11:49,320 --> 00:11:52,640 were, were posting about this over on Blue Sky and I just want 231 00:11:52,640 --> 00:11:56,600 to point out that Oliver Rivers actually quote tweeted Bennett, 232 00:11:56,600 --> 00:11:59,960 who had said something about how the OCCRP was getting, you know, 233 00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:03,160 they're trying to defund it. And Oliver Rivers, who's the COO 234 00:12:03,160 --> 00:12:07,360 of the OCCRP, said we're not going anywhere. 235 00:12:07,600 --> 00:12:09,960 So that's, that's what I love to see is these journalists 236 00:12:09,960 --> 00:12:12,080 basically putting their, putting their foots down and saying, 237 00:12:12,080 --> 00:12:14,720 Nope, this is bullshit. We're we're, it doesn't matter 238 00:12:14,720 --> 00:12:16,840 if they defund us. Like we are going to be a 239 00:12:16,840 --> 00:12:18,800 successful organization regardless. 240 00:12:18,800 --> 00:12:20,520 So I, I'm, I'm really proud of them. 241 00:12:20,800 --> 00:12:24,000 And if you can, if you can afford to support OCCRP, why are 242 00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:26,400 Rolling Stone? There's so many people doing 243 00:12:26,400 --> 00:12:28,720 really good work out there. Please, if you have an 244 00:12:28,720 --> 00:12:31,680 opportunity, I'm begging you, it's now or never. 245 00:12:33,680 --> 00:12:36,960 You might not have a Wired or a Rolling Stone in a year or two 246 00:12:36,960 --> 00:12:40,240 based on this administration. So pay for it now, because the 247 00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:42,280 work they're doing is super duper duper important. 248 00:12:44,440 --> 00:12:46,000 And I think that's basically where we're at. 249 00:12:46,200 --> 00:12:50,080 They have illegally seized the levers of power in the 250 00:12:50,080 --> 00:12:52,520 government. They are attempting to destroy 251 00:12:52,520 --> 00:12:55,840 the ability to regulate, prosecute, investigate. 252 00:12:56,080 --> 00:12:58,680 They are setting themselves up for complete and utter 253 00:12:58,680 --> 00:13:04,280 corruption, graft and just dismantling of the entire like 254 00:13:04,400 --> 00:13:07,040 infrastructure and I guess we all have to talk about. 255 00:13:07,040 --> 00:13:08,600 It Yep. And This is why we hedge with 256 00:13:08,800 --> 00:13:10,600 with cast coin guys. This is why we hedge.